Laedy Lopez and her sister Yheimmy started the school year with high hopes. The girls had just moved to New York City from the Dominican Republic to be with their mother and were enrolled in Washington Irving HS near Gramercy Park in Manhattan.

Neither spoke English, but the school offered bilingual classes and came highly recommended. It seemed like a perfect match.

But on Oct. 2, the Lopez sisters received a New York City public-school education that they could not have imagined in their worst nightmares.

That day, Laedy, 16, a tiny 11th grader who dresses conservatively, speaks quietly and never wears makeup, was viciously assaulted on the way to the school cafeteria.

“These people started cursing at me and speaking English and I don’t speak it,” Laedy said in Spanish. “One pulled my hair, got tough and started screaming at me. Two jumped me.”

Security officers arrived and took Laedy to the principal’s office. She told the principal what happened and filed a complaint against her attackers.

“The principal told me not to worry, that from now on nothing was going to happen,” she said. “She said there would be more security the next day.”

But the following day, things almost turned deadly. A gang of five jumped Laedy. Three others attacked her sister Yheimmy, 17, who was with her.

“I went down and they started to kick and stomp me,” Laedy said. “They punched me, they scratched my face with their nails.”

Laedy was pummeled by the mob for nearly 10 minutes, as other kids egged her attackers on. Her head was pulled back and her face was bloodied and beaten in the frenzied free-for-all. Yheimmy was also brutalized. Finally security arrived.

“I tried to get up,” Yheimmy, who was also badly injured, said. “I saw my sister on the floor, people were walking over her. Her face was all messed up, there was blood. I saw her and I started crying.”

The girls still don’t understand why the attack was allowed to happen – and continue for nearly 10 minutes – in a school that was supposed to be safe. They’ve retained Bronx lawyer David P. Lesch and are suing the Department of Education for the school’s failure to provide proper security.

“The principal lied to us,” Yheimmy said in Spanish. “She said it was safe.”